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+--- Thread: New Northern Pike State Record Aug, 2006 (/showthread.php?tid=276079)
New Northern Pike State Record Aug, 2006 - RPG - 08-10-2006
This article was in the Steamboat Pilot newspaper on Aug 8, 2006. 30lbs 11 oz.
Steamboat Springs — Tim Bone thought it would be nice to come up from the Front Range for the weekend and take his kids fishing at Stagecoach Reservoir.
Throwing some power bait on the end of an eight-pound test line without a leader, Bone hoped to catch a little trout Saturday. To his surprise, he got a bite that turned into what he called “a 25-minute fight.”
“Three times (the fish) went out at least 100 yards,” Bone said. “I had two guys in the water trying to finally fit it in the net, which was way too small, so they had to kind of fold him in half to get it in.”
Tyler Baskfield, public information specialist for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said Bone, a 39-year-old Thornton resident, brought the massive fish to the DOW Denver Headquarters to have it measured and weighed. The weight was 30 pounds, 11 ounces, which if confirmed, would be five ounces heavier than the state record for a northern pike.
“It’s 21 and a half inches around — that thing had some girth,” Baskfield said. “It doesn’t look as long as some of the other record pike, but it had a back on it about as wide as mine.”
Baskfield said it will take about a week to check the scales, have a biologist verify the species, make sure there was no tampering with the fish and to complete the associated paperwork before the DOW can confirm the record.
While Bone waits on the outcome, he already has taken the fish to get it mounted and was very forthcoming about his secret fishing spot at Stagecoach.
“I was down at the south end by the inlet near the day parking area, on shore right down from the bathroom,” he said.
Dan Bonner, owner of the Stagecoach Mar-ina, was also excited about the catch, but not quite as surprised.
“We knew they were in there,” Bonner said. “In 2004, some CSU guys doing a study netted and tagged a bunch of pike that size that would have qualified.”
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